Fire isn't always a "bad" thing.
The Naples Botanical Garden on Tuesday put that to the test with the propery's fourth prescribed fire this year.
The Garden began a prescribed fire regimen in early 2023 after many years of preparation.
"We burned a little less than 4 acres of pine flatwoods habitat," the Garden’s Natural Resources Director Eric Foht, said.
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Naples Botanical Garden’s Natural Resources Director Eric Foht.
John Eder
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Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow. The Naples Botanical Gardens depends on prescribed fire to help these types of plants.
John Eder
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— Naples Botanical Prescribed Burn 12_19_23-2.jpg
Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow. The Naples Botanical Gardens depends on prescriobed fire to help these types of plants.
John Eder
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Thaddeus Penfield, a certified burn manager, snaps shots of the prescribed burn Tuesday. The Gardens contracts with him for prescribed burns.
John Eder
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A prescribed fire expert sets fire at the Naples Botanical Gardens Tuesday. Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow. The Naples Botanical Gardens depends on prescribed fire to help these types of plants.
John Eder
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— Naples Botanical Prescribed Burn 12_19_23-5.jpg
Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow. The Naples Botanical Gardens depends on prescribed fire to help these types of plants.
John Eder
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— Naples Botanical Prescribed Burn 12_19_23-1.jpg
Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow. The Naples Botanical Gardens depends on prescribed fire to help these types of plants.
John Eder
He added that there was no history of fire on this parcel for at least the past 40 years. This means that a tremendous volume of natural debris, such as pine needles, had accumulated. That fuel load creates a fire risk — keep in mind that the Garden is sandwiched between residential developments.
“It was just what we wanted — we burned away a lot of the material that was a wildfire risk, and the wet conditions made it as calm as it could be for a forest area this overgrown,” Foht said.
Florida habitats depend on fire. There are plants that won’t bloom or seed until they’ve been touched by a flame, for example. Fire also regulates biodiversity. The debris accumulation and heavy overgrowth of plants such as saw palmetto make it impossible for grasses and wildflowers to grow.
“Without fire at the Garden, we’re losing our species, we’re losing our diversity, we’re losing Florida,” Thaddeus Penfield, a certified burn manager that the Garden contracts to carry out the fires, said.
The Garden has six distinct habitats on site, including pine flatwoods and coastal scrub. The prescribed fires are helping to keep these ecosystems healthy and functioning in the way nature intended.
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